Thanks to Kindle Direct Publishing and Create Space, both divisions of Amazon.com – my new book “TWO HEARTS” is now available on Amazon.com in the Kindle Store. If you don’t have a Kindle, you can download the Kindle app to any smartphone, tablet or computer from the same Amazon page. If you are not an e-reader person, the paperback edition will be available on the same page in early January.
I hope you will consider reading my story. It’s a suspenseful, romantic novel. There are some language and descriptive details that push it toward PG-13 to a mildly R-rated category. I’d call it a safe bet and suitable for mature readers, or those 17 years old and up.
What makes this special? No longer does any person have to be anointed or blessed by ritual of a monolithic publishing house, editor, literary agent or other long held traditional keeper of the lock and keys. These once powerful Wizards of Oz are now being exposed for what they always were. Gatekeepers. Gatekeepers of what were once thought to be lofty, untouchable places by mere mortals. Mortals like myself with a story, an idea, a thought, or vision. Today, in an ever increasingly rapid transition, the market place is the ultimate arbiter of what’s worthy. Not someone who assumed unauthorized power by decree or credential over your work, your craft – your art.
Here’s the beauty and why the Gatekeepers are fading fast. It doesn’t cost me a nickel to publish on Amazon. Kindle Direct Publishing and Create Space are happy to have me. They welcomed me with open arms and are in fact thrilled to have me! It’s in Amazon’s best interest for me to succeed since they get a portion of the sales. They have a vested interest in my success! They get content and more people coming to their site as the source of all things artistic, creative and entertaining and offer it at a good value. The only requirement they ask of me is enthusiasm, energy, the time and willingness to write. The only cost for me is my life’s experiences. I’ve already paid for those, right?
With this new turn of the lock and key, now the artist gets the biggest slice of the proceeds, not the Gatekeepers and middlemen. As the artist/author, I also own and retain the rights to all of my content, not some literary ivory tower publishing house through contract or decree. It used to be the other way around – if at all.
Kindle and Create Space are closely associated with the Amazon Prime arrangement either through free shipping, unlimited reading or by the Kindle Lending Library. Not to mention the power of the Amazon.com name.
Headline: Amazon Prime just added TEN MILLION new “Prime” customers over the holiday season – wow! How in the world, where or when, in the past 20 years could “I” have even the most wildly remote possibility of reaching an audience of that many people? Never…
Andy Warhol said it best, “Art is what you can get away with…” I’ll go with that.